Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/289

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OPPOSITION TO JESUIT EDUCATION.
269

admitted by the more candid advocates of the new persecution, and by not a few far-seeing Protestants.

Here, however, a serious objection is raised: Have not Catholics, even high dignitaries of the Church, opposed the Jesuits? How is this? "Protestants are not ignorant that the Society of Jesus has been the object of suspicion and attack from influential men in the Church of Rome itself; that no worse things have been said of it by Protestants than have been said by Romanists themselves; that Romish ecclesiastics have in all generations of its history, directed against it their open attacks and their secret machinations; that Romish teachers have dreaded it as a rival and intriguer."[1] However, such Protestants should not fail to examine who these "Romanists" are, and especially from what motives they act when attacking the Jesuits. We do not wish to say more on this subject, but quote only the words of a distinguished French writer, M. Lenormant, who said: "Outside the Catholic Church opinions regarding the Jesuits, as regarding other religious orders, are free, but within the Catholic Church the war against the Jesuits is the most monstrous inconsistency."[2]

The opposition of Catholic schools to the Society is frequently looked upon by non-Catholics as the surest proof of the dangerous character of Jesuit education. They point to the hostility of the Alma Mater of the Society, the once famous University of Paris, to the Jesuits. But a German Protestant, a pro-

  1. Professor Porter of Yale, Educational Systems of the Puritans and Jesuits compared, p. 90.
  2. "Endedans du catholicisme, la guerre aux Jésuites est la plus monstrueuse des inconséquences." De Badts de Cugnac, L'expulsion des Jésuites, p. 6.